LIFESCI 2D03 Chapter Notes - Chapter 13: Lactation, The Goose That Laid The Golden Eggs, Aviary
20 Dec 2016
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Parental care: behaviors by a parent to enhance the fitness of offspring, including incubation, feeding, and defense. Life history traits: traits involved with growth, reproduction and survivorship. Also, energy allocated to current offspring reduces energy that can be allocated to future offspring: ex. Elephants don"t mature until 13 y/o, reproduce once every 5 years, and provide parental care for several years to a single large offspring: ex. Fruit flies mature in a few weeks, females produce hundreds of offspring at once, but no parental care is provided: in general, species with a long lifespan produce few large offspring with more parental care and vice versa. Various species of fish have large variations in life history and parental care greatly varies across species. 300+ fish species" life history was examined. Examined factors: age, sexual maturity, max body size, length of breeding season, number of reproductive events per year, average egg size, reproductive rate, level of parental care.
